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Job Interview Arsenal: 20 Questions to Ask (Or Be Ready to Answer!)

With employees switching jobs every 4 years on average, having the chops to conduct an insightful interview – not to mention
knowing how to be a good interviewee – is a skill worth cultivating. To update our bag of tricks, we polled the whip-smart 99U Twitter followers for their favorite job interview questions and curated the best into this list.

Whether you’re hiring or looking for work, 20 questions you’ll want to have in your arsenal:

1. What is a common misperception about you? (There’s often a seed of truth in the answer.)
– @aarondignan

2. What do you do on your days off?
– @nicolemwms3. Whose website would you want to design or redesign?
– @hugeinc (jessica bauer-greene)

“Tell me a funny joke.” Puts people on the spot, but good to know they have a sense of humor.

maya

some of these are great ways of approaching common sense questions in an interesting fashion. but some of them just scream pretension or the desire to put the interviewee on their back foot by ‘surprising’ them or trying to unbalance them. to me, an interview owes as much to those conducting it as those being interviewed. honestly, if someone asked me one of those fermi questions i would be immediately put off. why do interviewers feel like they need to ‘catch’ people out? if you have no faith in the interview system to produce honest results then maybe you should use another system, instead of trying to ‘trick’ a candidates ‘real self’ out of them within the context of a manufactured interaction. i dont mean to sound like a grump but i have been to enough interviews where the interviewer has tried to shock me and i dont appreciate the sentiment – it shows a fundamental lack of sensitivity about the inherent imbalance of power in such interactions.

Charles Lee

What makes you laugh and what makes you cry?

Ana

I also expect to know more about people in an interview. I think this questions are very funny and useful. Maybe not all, but most of them.Thanks!

Jocelyn

@maya – I hear your criticism in terms of “tricking candidates.” I don’t think the interview process should be about trying to make someone feel foolish, or to put them back on their heels. That said, I think the interview style – and questions asked – should be tailored to the job at hand. Some positions are keenly dependent on being able to think on your feet – say, a position like live events production – while others are not. If you’re hiring for a position for which quick thinking is imperative, I think there’s some justification for asking questions that draw that type of thinking out. But I think that such questions should always be framed sensitively as you suggest.

dominik

At the very end of the interview:“Picture this morning. What was the question you hoped not to be asked?”

In general I donÂ´t think an interview is a way to get to know someone…ItÂ´s just a result of a wrong “modern world approach” to “manage” everything. To control, to standardize processes and make them more “efficient”, because “time is money”. Imo that logic should not be applied when you deal with people. If you look for new team members you do something very essential that might gain a lot of impact: you change the DNA of your team/ company.

So imo the ONLY way to get an impression of someone, that might help you to decide is: spend time with her/ him, have a dinner, do a brainstorm …And donÂ´t just sit there and ask questions you yourself would hate to answer.

Common Interview Questions

Please may leave jobs because of 2 things..first is job satisfaction issue and next hike in salary. Thats it. The questions was great help to me..hope you share this link on to face book also!!

Employment Interview Questions

Thanks for sharing the question and answers! Hope this will for sure help people searching for jobs!

Kate Russell

I just interviewed someone as a Web writer and asked three things: 1. What skill did she most recently learn? (Is she always trying to get better)2. What blogs does she subscribe to? (Anyone writing for Web should, in my opinion, be reading blogs)3. Have you heard of the career position of conversation manager? (How up-to-date is she on Web jobs)

Sadly, she “failed” all three, which told me that she wasn’t the right person to fill this job.

drope

I’m wondering if these questions can also be used during the interviewers selection and not only candidates?

randyrojar

This is really nice article to read about. All the question is rally good to ask and may be possible if you are going to interviews and somebody will ask you same question. Thanks for sharing useful question about interview.

i always ask if they are easily offended … since we are such a small office (3-4 people typically) we would rather not have someone that will be offended by everything … by asking an off handed question like that you can usually tell if not by their answer by their reaction! 🙂

www.jobsdbcenter.com

Job interviews are a necessary evil for the work I do. I personally
think they are weighed far too heavily and that people’s ability to
perform at a high level can hardly be judged just by sitting down with
them for 20-30 minutes, but nevertheless they are important for anyone
looking for a job (or looking to hire someone for a job). I enjoyed
your tips

luke

hi people drop me a text or call some time I have loads of good interview Question for you or ask me for my number on a comment thank you ??????